No more waiting: 2018 DTM season has begun. The veteran Gary Paffett was the Poleman at the qualifying and he even kept the first place at the start. The start was clean without incidents at the first turns not even at the complicated Hockenheim loop.
Marco Wittmann, Lucas Auer and Timo Glock followed Paffett. Auer becomes second easily. 10 minutes after the start Auer profited his DRS to take the leader position and Glock did the same with Wittmann. Both BMW were followed by Pascal Wehrlein that returned to the championship after two years in the Formula 1. Dani Juncadella that also returned to the competition finished eleventh.
20 minutes from the start of the race, Mike Rockenfeller was the first driver to stop from the top10 although Jamie Green and the rookie Robin Frijns did it before. Two turns later, Glock and Wittmann BMW did it, they were third and fourth.
Once the leaders had stopped, the fourth first places were the same although the rest didn’t have stopped. Rockenfeller was the most benefited by the stuation, he was between Wittmann and Wehrlein at a virtual p5. However, Paffett overtook Auer to regain the leadership and the German driver saw his second position threatened by Glock.
20 minutes left to the end, René Rast, the current champion and leader of the race and Juncadella stopped. Nico Müller was the only left to enter in boxes and so reestablish the real positions. The fight for the fourth position was between Wittmann, Rockenfeller and Wehrlein, the 2015 champion won the position to Rockenfeller. The German driver from Audi made a mistake and lost two positions, in front of Edoardo Mortara and Bruno Spengler, becoming p8.
Mortara and Spengler overtook Wittmann; Rockenfeller, lost two more positions against Paul Di Resta and the rookie Joel Eriksson. Mortara contined gaining positions and he overtook Wehrlein to be p4.
There were no more significant changes from here untill the end and Paffett won the first race of the season, only his team mate Auer could fight for the victory. Glock completes the podium with his third place. . Mortara, Wehrlein, Spengler, Di Resta, Juncadella, Rast and Loic Duval complete the top10.
Next race will be tomorrow at 13:30pm local time.
